ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the specific functions that the environmental water managers (EWMs) have been created to perform, and how their legal form and activities combine to give them the rights and powers of legal persons to act on behalf of the aquatic environment. The EWMs are legal persons who represent the environment in water resource management, so they are a useful example of the implications for water governance when rivers have legal rights. To prevent further deterioration in the ecological health of water systems, environmental flow policies, and the legal frameworks that implement them, take the form of protection and maintenance of existing environmental flows. EWMs are organisations that hold environmental water rights and make decisions on how to use those rights to achieve the maximum environmental outcome. EWMs are distinct organisations with legal personhood, which they use to acquire and/or manage environmental water rights in the water market.